Return to Pandora
by Totem Of Storms
Summary: The opening thoughts for a sequel to the film, showing that sometimes the decisions we make turn out not to be quite so clear cut as we first thought. This might be continued out to a full story if I get enough interest.


Everyone is confused; the clocks show that you came out of stasis nearly three months later than you should have, despite there being no trouble with the ship itself. Major Samuel Harris has called everyone together in the ship's main briefing room to inform you of what has happened.  
"A little over two years ago a ship from Earth arrived at Pandora carrying the latest batch of troops, scientists and so forth. Three months after they arrived though, one of the troops that had been sent there went native, decided that he was the new messiah, and kicked all RDA forces, aside from a few sympathetic Humans, off Pandora. We met up with the ship carrying them back to Earth and transferred a couple of people over here, then carried on with our journey.  
"Our original mission was to reinforce the mining operation and ensure that the unobtanium started heading back home as fast as possible. Now, we've got a new mission. The natives kicked us off because their main home, which is apparently not only hallowed ground but also a key point in their psychic link. Our forces did significant damage to it in order to try to drive the natives out, which is basically where Sully started the uprising. They were moving back in when the previous mission left the planet. Now we need to convince them to move out again so that we can get at the unobtainium beneath Hometree."  
A new figure, one who clearly isn't used to zero gravity, moves forwards and anchors himself firmly to the briefing room's table. "My name is Parker Selfridge. I'm the... I was the... Corporate administrator on behalf of RDA on Pandora. I authorised the strike against Hometree..." He seems genuinely upset by this and the way that things have gone. "I did so, because I knew, unlike anyone else on Pandora, why we need the unobtainium."  
The holographic projector in the table lights up, showing what looks like a representation of the sun. "This is currently the most accurate projection of the state of the sun sometime in the next nine to eleven years." The image swirls, showing various patterns and clouds rushing across it, before suddenly it seems to flare and something bursts out of it in a ring. Everyone flinches at that one, then Selfridge rewinds the projection, taking it back to the middle of the ring heading out.  
"What you're looking at is a solar flare-up of a kind that we hoped never to see. A massive radiation wave that will move out, covering the entire solar plane. When it hits the Earth everything on the sunward side will be sterilised. The night side... They think that the land surface will be wiped clean, but something down in the oceans will survive. Even if we built shelters to protect some of the population, it would never be enough because the planet's biosphere would be destroyed. The only hope that we have are these."  
The hologram changes to show what looks like a high-tech umbrella; a long spindle with a circular arrangement coming out of one end. The scale indicators show that it's something like sixty metres across though and the spindle is nearly fifty metres long.  
"These are part of a solar shield array that is being set up in low orbit. It's a global project; everyone gets saved, or no one does. There's no way to predict close enough when the flare will come, and no way to position the satellites in time once the flare does appear. We need, as a minimum, three hundred satellites to produce an effective shield. Less optimistic guesses suggest that we'll need more like four hundred and fifty, maybe five hundred. We currently have a hundred and fifty in orbit. The unobtainium beneath Hometree will be enough to produce over a hundred satellites, maybe more. Total known deposits could give us three hundred and fifty.  
"The satellites we have at present won't do anything to protect against that flare when it comes. And we're falling behind production because of the shortage of unobtainium. We didn't tell the previous teams that we sent why we needed it because of the security order on the whole thing; the public doesn't know about the flare, and they won't be told until those shields are in place and they are safe. You are being told so that you understand the odds. Eight and a half billion Humans are going to die a decade from now if we can't convince the Na'vi to let us take the unobtanium."


End file.
